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Reader and Collector, v. 3, issue 6, January 1946

Page 27

27.

Since the mythology of the pre-adamic races is one of the basic points of Lovecraft's mythology which has been adopted by the American group, this comparison shows how Theosophic doctrine can become an unsuspected source in the hands of authors themselves. The Secret Doctrine contains much subject matter that has been used in fantastic fiction. Whether the influence is direct or not is impossible to discover, but the following excerpt from Blavatsky's introduction to the volume would have struck the imagination of anyone who read it. The excerpt deals with buried cities, an extremely popular topic for fantastic stories.

A whole geological period has swept over the land, since those cities breathed their last, as the mounds of shifting sand, and the sterile and now dead soil of the immense central plains of the basin of Tarim testify. The borderlands alone are superfically known to the traveller. Within those tablelands of sand there is water, and fresh oases were found blooming there, wherein European foot has never ventured, or trodden the now treacherous soil. Among these verdant oases there are some which are entirely inaccessible even to the native profane traveller. Hurricanes may "tear up the sands and sweep the whole plains away," they are powerless to destroy that which is beyond their reach. Built deep in the bowels of the earth, the subterranean stores are secure; and as their entrances are concealed in such cases, there is little fear that anyone should discover them, even should several armies invade the sandy wastes where-
Not a pool, not a bush, not a house is seen,
And the mountain-range forms a rugged screen
Round the parch'd flats of dry, dry desert...11

Fantastic fiction uses ideas like this; it draws on all mystery for ideas which will present to man a large, more powerful force, a more mysterious force, than he thinks exists in our modern world. Fantastic fiction can be called escapist literature insofar as it leads a man out of his own problems; but does it not present others far larger than a single man? For ages past we find that the fantastic has never been forgotten, but seldom has it been called upon in time when such ideas have fitted more precisely the demands of a reading public. For the same reason that one folk scholar predicted an increase in modern ghostlore in the next ten years, I can predict a growth in the popularity of fantastic fiction.
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11. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, p. Xii.

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27. Since the mythology of the pre-adamic races is one of the basic points of Lovecraft's mythology which has been adopted by the American group, this comparison shows how Theosophic doctrine can become an unsuspected source in the hands of authors themselves. The Secret Doctrine contains much subject matter that has been used in fantastic fiction. Whether the influence is direct or not is impossible to discover, but the following excerpt from Blavatsky's introduction to the volume would have struck the imagination of anyone who read it. The excerpt deals with buried cities, an extremely popular topic for fantastic stories. A whole geological period has swept over the land, since those cities breathed their last, as the mounds of shifting sand, and the sterile and now dead soil of the immense central plains of the basin of Tarim testify. The borderlands alone are superfically known to the traveller. Within those tablelands of sand there is water, and fresh oases were found blooming there, wherein European foot has never ventured, or trodden the now treacherous soil. Among these verdant oases there are some which are entirely inaccessible even to the native profane traveller. Hurricanes may "tear up the sands and sweep the whole plains away," they are powerless to destroy that which is beyond their reach. Built deep in the bowels of the earth, the subterranean stores are secure; and as their entrances are concealed in such cases, there is little fear that anyone should discover them, even should several armies invade the sandy wastes where- Not a pool, not a bush, not a house is seen, And the mountain-range forms a rugged screen Round the parch'd flats of dry, dry desert...11 Fantastic fiction uses ideas like this; it draws on all mystery for ideas which will present to man a large, more powerful force, a more mysterious force, than he thinks exists in our modern world. Fantastic fiction can be called escapist literature insofar as it leads a man out of his own problems; but does it not present others far larger than a single man? For ages past we find that the fantastic has never been forgotten, but seldom has it been called upon in time when such ideas have fitted more precisely the demands of a reading public. For the same reason that one folk scholar predicted an increase in modern ghostlore in the next ten years, I can predict a growth in the popularity of fantastic fiction. __________________ 11. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, p. Xii.